Limited to 133 copies.
"Piilotajunnan heijastuksia" (Finnish: "Reflections of the Subconscious") is part of a double set of demos released in July 2024 by Rämealttari, a new act originally formed as a solo project by Hämärä (Kurjuus, Harhaoppisten Ylipapitar, Saastunut) and now a duo with the recent addition of drummer PJ aka Petri Jauhiainen. Hämärä originally had intended for Rämealttari to be a synth-based psychedelic / ambient side project but after his main act Kurjuus recorded and released a split album with PJ's Xulux earlier in 2024, the two musicians decided to pool their talents together with the result that Rämealttari has now metamorphosed into an experimental dark ambient / psychedelic BM duo.
Most of the music on "Piilotajunnan heijastuksia" was recorded over spring and early summer in 2024 by Rämealttari at Hämärä's home and in Jyväskylä, in central Finland, with the ambient parts having been recorded a year or two years earlier by Hämärä. For the most part, the music is sharp raw BM with a tough edge, made intense by Hämärä's harsh, shouty (and occasionally anguished) vocals and PJ's robust thunderous drumming. Opening track " Ajan merkitys haihtuu" ("The meaning of time evaporates") sets the standard for the other five songs to follow with cosmic psychedelic ambient effects edged around its introduction and coda, and an impassioned lead solo, enhanced with reverb, at its climax. The second track " Vapaus modernin maailman myrkyttävästä saastasta" ("Freedom from the toxic filth of the modern world") features even more emotional lead guitar solo work and wailing vocals, and culminates in solo guitar / psychedelic ambient melancholy.
There is still a lot of hard-hitting raw melodic BM on "Avaa silmäsi ja luovu itsepetoksest" ("Open your eyes and stop deceiving yourself") but this time there is more keyboard work of a most plaintive and sorrowful kind topped by a shrill solo melody halfway through the track. "Puhtaan totuuden lähteellä II" ("With the source of pure truth 2") has a darker quality in its guitar and bass tones leading to a bleaker atmosphere, though the drumming is still powerful and energetic. Just when you think this track isn't going to be that much different from previous songs in its structuring otherwise, it dissolves into very dark cosmic ambient psychedelia with a stray, crumbly bassline.
At 8+ minutes, the title track is the longest on the demo and the one equally balanced between the grim raw melodic BM with its pain and powerful percussion, and the trippy cosmic space psychedelia with the slightly nauseous sounds and soupy atmosphere. Listening to this track over and over, you can feel yourself drowning in the same anguish, with a similar sense of everyday things going awry and melting disorder and chaos, as Hämärä does in the rest of the demo. Outro track "Hiljentymisen voima" ("The power of silence") is an all-ambient piece of synth space psychedelia but the silence it offers is not necessarily the silence of serenity and tranquillity that come from feeling stable and at peace with yourself and your environment.
Gritty in both sound and emotion, sharp in tone but tough and blunt in expression and feeling, this demo gains its dynamism from the sonic contrasts between the raw BM power and the clean, pure-toned cosmic space ambient psychedelia, and what these genres may represent. Though the music is lo-fi and primitivist in nature, its delivery is technically precise and consistent, and its production is clean with a spacious quality thanks to the careful and sparing use of reverb on guitars and keyboards. While the ambient tone effects and the melodic nature of the core raw black metal help soften the music, this is balanced by PJ's enthusiasm on the drums and Hämärä's own tortured singing and lyrics that comment on modern society and its corruption, and which appeal to humans to wake up to truth and reality and to try to stop the rot and decay.
Overall, this demo is a strong and powerful yet heartfelt introduction to an act that may become significant in its own right, in its particular style of fusion BM psychedelia and its choice of themes, even as it continues to be a side project for two musicians already kept busy by their main projects in Kurjuus and Xulux along with their other, separate side projects.
Sample:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4gCrd_vwA&t=1458s
